Negation and the brain: experiments in health and in focal brain disease, and their theoretical implications

GRODZINSKY, YOSEF; JAICHENCO, VIRGINIA; ISABELLE DESCHAMPS ; MARÍA ELINA SÁNCHEZ; FUCHS, MARTÍN

Oxford Handbook of Negation

Oxford University Press

Lugar: New York; Año: 2020; p. 694 - 712

This chapter is on the processing cost of sentential negation, and about attempts to uncover its neural basis. We review experimental evidence from normal processing and from aphasia, and discuss its theoretical relevance. Psycholinguistic studies on the processing of negation have been conducted for many years (e.g., Wason, 1965; Fodor & Garrett, 1966; Just & Carpenter, 1971; Kaup&Zwaan,2006; Deschamps, Agmon, Loewenstein &Grodzinsky, 2015). Here, we focus on attempts to localize brain mechanisms entrusted with the processing of negation, and of tests that try to ask whether they are distinct from those mechanisms known to support aspects of syntax. At centerstage, then, will be results of experiments on sentential negation in health and in focal brain disease. As will be seen, there are substantial neurolinguistichints regarding negation.